CordeValle in line to host U.S. Women’s Open in 2016

CordeValle Golf Club, south of San Jose, is in line to host the U.S. Women’s Open in 2016, the Chronicle has learned.

CordeValle officials confirmed the club extended an invitation to the USGA and acknowledged the two organizations have been talking about bringing the women’s Open to Northern California in ’16. But one source characterized it as “a done deal,” with an announcement expected in the coming months.

USGA officials would only confirm they have received an invitation from CordeValle.

The women’s Open would raise the national profile of CordeValle, which opened in 1999 and has hosted the PGA Tour’s Frys.com Open the past three years. The Frys will return to CordeValle in October, as the inaugural event in the tour’s reconfigured 2013-14 season.

Tiger Woods saw CordeValle's picturesque setting up close in October 2011.

That tournament gave CordeValle some measure of recognition in October 2011, when Tiger Woods came to play during his recovery from knee and Achilles tendon injuries. Woods tied for 30th.

CordeValle also will host the USGA Senior Women’s Amateur in September. It’s common for the USGA to hold one of its events at a course in advance of a higher-profile tournament. The Olympic Club, for example, hosted the U.S. Amateur in 2007 and then the U.S. Open last year.

This would be the first time since 1982 that the U.S. Women’s Open has been held in California (and the first time ever in the Bay Area). This year’s tournament will be played at Sebonack in Southampton, N.Y., with future editions set for Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina in 2014, Lancaster (Pa.) Country Club in 2015 and Trump National in New Jersey in 2017.

Trump National officials reportedly could have landed the ’16 Open instead, but they preferred to avoid competing with the PGA Championship, already scheduled for nearby Baltusrol in August 2016.

CordeValle, designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., offers a picturesque setting in San Martin, in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It’s unclear if the course can provide the kind of rugged test typically associated with USGA events; the winning scores in the Frys have been 15-under-par (Rocco Mediate in 2010), 17-under (Bryce Molder in ’11) and 16-under (Jonas Blixt last year).